Strong Effort Manipulations Reduce Response Caution: A Preregistered Reinvention of the Ego-Depletion Paradigm

Abstract

People feel tired or depleted after exerting mental effort. But even preregistered studies often fail to find effects of exerting effort on behavioral performance in the laboratory or elucidate the underlying psychology. We tested a new paradigm in four preregistered within-subjects studies ( N = 686). An initial high-demand task reliably elicited very strong effort phenomenology compared with a low-demand task. Afterward, participants completed a Stroop task. We used drift-diffusion modeling to obtain the boundary (response caution) and drift-rate (information-processing speed) parameters. Bayesian analyses indicated that the high-demand manipulation reduced boundary but not drift rate. Increased effort sensations further predicted reduced boundary. However, our demand manipulation did not affect subsequent inhibition, as assessed with traditional Stroop behavioral measures and additional diffusion-model analyses for conflict tasks. Thus, effort exertion reduced response caution rather than inhibitory control, suggesting that after exerting effort, people disengage and become uninterested in exerting further effort.

Lost by definition: Why boredom matters for psychology and society

“…If so, people should show declines in performance as boredom increases (and attention decreases) over the duration of a task, but those effects should vanish when the task ends, or when switching to a new task. Michael Inzlicht and colleagues theorize and find evidence consistent with such an account; for instance, participants exhibit small but significant depletion‐like effects—namely decreases in performance and attention, but also increases in fatigue and boredom—within a task, that then return to baseline when participants shift to a new task (Francis, Saunders, Umemoto, & Inzlicht, 2020; Lin et al, 2020). Boredom and fatigue may have more in common than previously realized: notably, participants find boring tasks (e.g., passively observing number strings) even more fatiguing than cognitively effortful versions of the same task (e.g., mentally adding three to each digit of a four‐digit number; Milyavaskaya et al, 2019).…”

“…Circling numerals on a page, or turning pegs on a pegboard, are well‐known boredom inductions; their use to this end dates back to classic work on obedience to authority (Orne, 1962) and cognitive dissonance (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). Recent work suggests that boredom may partially explain declines in performance during tedious tasks (Inzlicht & Friese, 2019; Lin, Saunders, Friese, Evans, & Inzlicht, 2020). That is, while people may be capable of exerting self‐control, they may choose not to do so if they feel bored or otherwise unmotivated (e.g., Gieseler, Inzlicht, & Friese, 2020; Inzlicht & Schmeichel, 2012).…”

Die Replikationskrise in der Psychologie

“…Das es sich hierbei nicht um ein Schreckensszenario handelt, konnte das Beispiel um die Ego-Depletion Theory [34] zeigen, als 8 Jahre später [2], nach mehreren Hunderten Studien um und über die Ego-Depletion Theory, gezeigt werden konnte, dass es den Effekt womöglich gar nicht gibt [72], bzw. immer noch diskutiert wird, ob der Effekt vielleicht viel kleiner ist als zunächst vermutet [86], oder andere Mechanismen für den Effekt zuständig sein könnten [87]. Zusätzlich zu der Problematik der statistischen Herangehensweise gibt es noch eine zweite Problematik: Falls fälsch licherweise ein Effekt signifikant wird, steigt die Wahrscheinlichkeit einen größeren Effekt gemessen zu haben, je geringer die Anzahl der Versuchspersonen ist (▶Abb.…”

Can we catch flies with vinegar? Recurrent issues in ego-depletion studies, and potential solutions

“…Over time, many replication attempts of ego-depletion effects have omitted this original definition. For example, Lin et al, (2020) proposed that ego-depletion refers to feeling tired after exerting a mental effort. Other proposed that ego-depletion corresponds to deficits in persistence and performance on cognitive and motor tasks after a self-regulatory effort (Segerstrom & Nes, 2007), or to impaired performance after any monitoring and modification of behavior (Vohs et al, 2005).…”

“…However, several studies that have failed to replicate ego-depletion effects have investigated them outside this strict definition, for example by manipulating mental/cognitive effort (e.g., Englert et al, 2015;Lin et al, 2020), with tasks unrelated to self-control or to conflict resolution (e.g., Finkel et al, 2006). In fact, these studies did not test ego-depletion (Lurquin & Miyake, 2017), suggesting that the ego-depletion controversy could have been fostered by the omission of the original concept this phenomenon is part of.…”